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Oilers Corner Gorski returns to Oilers

Posted: Friday, November 08, 2002

Tim Gorski has returned his signed contract for the 2003 season. Gorski was among team leaders in games started, earned run average and fewest walks-per-innings pitched for the 2002 Oilers. The 6-foot-3 right-hander is from the University of Illinois and calls Lindenhurst, Ill., his home. Tim's parents, Ronald and Diana Gorski, visited the Kenai Peninsula twice during the past summer. Gorski redshirted the 2000 Big Ten season, so he is academically a senior but has the baseball eligibility of a junior. Gorski is majoring in Industrial Distribution Management and has plans to further his education with graduate school. Gorski spent the 2002 summer with the Bonnie and Dan Duncan family.

Sophomore right-handed pitcher Ladd Hall also has signed for 2003. Hall is from Hereford, Ariz., and is a sophomore at Eastern Arizona College. Ladd is 6-foot-3 and has been drafted twice, in 2001 by the Seattle Mariners in the 22nd round and in 2002 by the Houston Astros in the 30th round. Hall was named Eastern Arizona College Male Athlete of the Year for the past year.

During this past summer, Hall played for Torrington of the New England Collegiate Baseball League and sported a very good earned run average of 1.12 and average a strikeout an inning. Hall is the son of Bo and Joyce Hall and will be returning to the peninsula having spent the summers of 1990 and 1991 here while his father, Bo, was serving as Oilers head coach. The elder Hall has retired from coaching at Cochise College and is now the school's Dean of Students. Eastern Arizona College head coach Jim Bagnall played on the 1981 Oilers team and returned as the Oilers head coach in 1987. Bagnall also serves as the school's athletic director.

Seattle Mariners first baseman John Olerud (Oilers 1988) is one of 130 major leaguers to declare as a free agent.

Jeremy Dodson (Oilers 1997) was recently released by the Kansas City Royals. Dodson spent four seasons as an outfielder in the Royals system before moving to the mound in 2002. Dodson holds the Oilers single-season record for home runs with 14, which also is enough to rank him in second place on the team's all-time list.

For more information regarding the Alaska Baseball League and the Peninsula Oilers see the team's Web site at www.oilersbaseball.com or visit the team's office on the corner of Cook and Main streets in Kenai.

Oilers corner is provided in the offseason by Mike Baxter, the baseball operations manager of the Alaska Baseball League team.